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Design and development of a second generation Plasma Pyrolysis Assembly (PPA) reactor is currently underway as part of NASA's Atmosphere Revitalization Resource Recovery effort. By recovering up to 75% of the hydrogen currently lost as methane in the Sabatier reactor effluent, the PPA helps to minimize life support resupply costs for extended duration missions. To date, second generation PPA development has demonstrated significant technology advancements over the first generation device by doubling the methane processing rate while, at the same time, more than halving the required power. One development area of particular interest to NASA system engineers is fouling of the PPA reactor with carbonaceous products. As a mitigation plan, NASA MSFC has explored the feasibility of using an oxidative plasma based upon metabolic CO 2 to regenerate the reactor window and gas inlet ports. The results and implications of this testing are addressed along with the advanced PPA reactor development.

SYNOPSISThe effect of crosslinking of plasticized PVC on the mechanical properties has been investigated. Crosslinking was performed by using a dithioltriazine, and penetration as a function of temperature was used to follow the changes in mechanical properties. Changes in the melting behavior were detected by differential scanning calorimetry. Even rather low levels of gel content gave a substantial reduction in penetration in the interval 60-llO"C, while a more complete reaction prevented major penetration up to at least 200°C. The penetration curve of heavily crosslinked materials showed several plateaus and the transitions could be related to melting of different crystallites formed by annealing at different temperatures. The physical network formed by the crystallites constitutes an important complement to the chemical network in plasticized PVC crosslinked by dithioltriazine. Both the amount and the melting temperature of the crystallites increased after annealing. The introduction of the chemical network further improved the heat resistance of the crystallites. The presence of the two networks will therefore show a synergistic effect with respect to the mechanical properties at increased temperatures.

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